Democratic Presidential Candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich announced plans to drop his support of Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ)'s controversial election reform bill, HR 811, during a telephone appearance at a New Hampshire activist event over the weekend. The Ohio congressman and outspoken critic of the Iraq War also announced that he plans to re-introduce "The Paper Ballot Act," (HR 6200) a bill he filed in the last Congress, requiring the hand counting of paper ballots in Presidential elections.

Kucinich "announced he will advise Rep. Holt that the he will not be supporting HR 811, a voter reform bill rapidly losing support," according to a press release issued today by his New Hampshire campaign spokesman....

Speaking to a gathering at DemocracyFest, a grassroots event sponsored by Democracy for America (DFA), the Ohio Congressman said, "The key to engaging voters is complete credibility of the electoral process," as he announced intentions to "continue my oversight hearings on election integrity.”

"When asked about reintroducing HR 6200, his bill calling for hand counted paper ballots in the presidential race for last session, Kucinich said it would be 'very soon,'" according to the campaign's press release, which was also posted by Democracy for New Hampshire election integrity advocate Nancy Tobi at OpEdNews today. Tobi, an outspoken critic of HR 811, also spoke at the event, which her group also helped sponsor.

DFA is headed by Jim Dean, the brother of DNC Chairman Howard Dean, who has previously endorsed Holt's bill. In a statement issued by the DNC earlier this year, Dean said that the bill "represents a giant step forward in improving election administration in this nation and in restoring the confidence of our citizens in the way our elections are run."

Jim Dean has told us that DFA itself has not taken a specific position on HR 811, but has called for paper ballots in American elections. The Holt bill does not require a paper ballot for every vote cast. Though the bill's language deceptively describes paper trail records created by Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting systems as "paper ballots" despite the fact that those paper trails are never actually counted on Election Night, and the vast majority of them are never required to be counted by anyone or anything. Instead, HR 811 requires that a random sampling of 3% (sometimes as many as 10%) of those paper trails be counted by hand in a post-election audit days later.

DRE voting systems fail to meet the requirement in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 which says that such voting systems must allow "the voter to verify...the votes selected by the voter on the ballot before the ballot is cast and counted." It is impossible to do so on such systems. The Holt bill would allow for their continued use nonetheless.

Kucinich's New Hampshire campaign spokesman, Chris Collier, confirmed Kucinich's plan in a phone conversation with The BRAD BLOG this afternoon. He said he believes Kucinich, who is currently in California, will be speaking to Holt this week after returning to DC, to inform him that he wishes to be withdrawn as a co-sponsor of the bill.

Collier says that Kucinich "is good to his word," but a "reasonable man," and would be willing to work with Holt if the New Jersey Congressman were willing to make needed changes in the bill to address the many concerns of Election Integrity advocates. The BRAD BLOG has spoken at length to staffers in Holt's office, as well as Holt himself, about making such changes in the bill. So far, they have been adamant in their refusal to include a requirement in the legislation for a paper ballot --- one that is actually counted --- for every vote cast in America.

Last night, The BRAD BLOG ran an editorial by Ellen Theisen of the non-partisan election integrity organization VotersUnite.org. Theisen, who had been an ardent supporter of previously introduced versions of Holt's bill, has now come out against the current version citing seven "severe failures" in the bill. She writes that such failures will do "more harm than good" to our democracy. She charges that the bill's provisions will "legitimize that 'ballots' need not be counted" and will "endorse the practice of secret vote-counting."

I am unclear on what specifically Kucinich is objecting in the Holt Bill that is causing him to withdraw this support. I also don't see any clear info on when his bill is going to go through all the committees etc it has to and if it has any chance of making it for the 2008 elections. Does anyone have any news on that?

Well look at Kucinich's HR 6200 (Hand counted paper ballots) and you have a big head start on what his problems are with HR 811. The Kucinich press release also states "The key to engaging voters” Kucinich stated emphatically “is complete credibility of the electoral process. I plan to continue my oversight hearings on election integrity.”"

So some of you arrr making it harder for a trans-national corporate machine's candidate to win now. WAssup with dat? Being stupid pays is spades right Republican and Republidems?

i think Americans basically all believe the same. We collectively believe in a man in the sky who will watch over "US" as in the united states. Did you ever wonder why us and US are the same letters? It's because the United States is special. It's because this guy in the sky can be black for black people, white for white, and he can look mexican-chinese for mexican chinese Americans.
Best of all, he's happy as shit if American continue to use 30% of all the world's energy and produce 25% of all harmful global warming gas from humans burning fossil fuel because you are all Americans.

Don't worry about anything because regardless of how humans rape and destroy this planet, in a concerted effort to destroy all the "other" species in the process, this man in the sky is gonna let all you and all Congressmen into a nicccccce place if you're good or a hot hot hotttt place if you're bad when you draw your last breath.

So no worries.

Support Cheney-Bush leadership and the anti-science lies they espout and don't worry if "us" escalates nukes. Don't worry if the world has some pent up resentment for the Bush administration using the #1 military for attacking a country based on lies to steal their oil and then continue to their illegal occupation wearing the face of death.

Don't worry about humans destroying the last wild lands on this planet, or the earth's fragile air and water system because you stupid greedy fcks who live here in power know in the big picture that you're all gonna be dead soon and you think you're going to that niccce place or you just don't care because you will be DEAD. Admit it.

Don't worry about a verifiable election for the most powerful position in US government because according to this us president, the man in the sky is talking to him. Nevermind that his party cheated to win the office he holds. Don't hold these greedy sellouts in Congress accountable for their actions just carry on with your personal life because you are sooooooo important.

Don't worry about what's going on around you outside the woes of young Ms. Hilton because the president is taking advice from his trusted friends. He's getting rid of those evil criminals who want to bombed the White House and kill the heads of the oil companies who control the world. Don't be to hard on them. They only did it because they have an inner need to make their guy in the sky happy and because just didn't like the power these rich power brokers used destructively to kill their people as us leaders lined their pockets. Oh yeh, and dey didn't liek thar freedom.

Keep allowing corporations to run the US military industrial complex without restraint and you won't need a cartoon hero or man in the sky to tell you where we're gonna be in a few short years. If some stupid dictator doesn't blow up the planet to retaliate against the Bush administration. Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Condolizza Rice, Alberto Gonzales Larry Silverstein, Rudolf Giuliani, and any anyone else i forgot to name all know something about wargames on 9/11. 9/11 was the useful masterful tool for PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICA and forever remains the ultimate excuse for altering the US Democratic system into a muscular Fascist machine.

Study World Trade Tower Building #7 like it's a world class criminal investigation even though there has never been one and understand that Giuliani orchestrated the shipping of the forensic evidence overseas. Then move onto the Congressional testomony of why NORAD stood down. Get lost in the multiple lies, coverups, and excuses for the 4 different coordinated exercises so the East Coast would be left vunerable for Cheney's attack. Demand a private viewing of the over 100 Pentagon videos that captured the Pentagon attack. Not to say that these videos exist anymore or that you will ever get the names of "us terrorists" who confiscated mysteriously lost videos but you can always ask. This is a government of the people right? You control the government the government doesn't control you right? You don't need the permission of the guy in the sky to change the way things are done right? Then ask George Bush why he let Bin Ladens family fly out of the country the day after 9/11 with the Saudi Royal Family. It's a family affair..it's a family affair. While your at it, ask Georgee about the World Trade Tower security records from his brother Marvin who formerly was on the board of directors at that very same company coincidently. Why bomb sniffing dogs were removed from the Twin Towers weeks before? Take a look at weekend closures (records) to show when bomb experts got inide to rig the 3 World Trade Towers with explosives.

Good Work Dennis.
However special thanks for a job well done for our US VP Dick Cheney. He has a special Congression role. Your lying and committment to an anti-environmentalist agenda, not to mention your murderous wargame activities have earned you top honors under my private watch. Even if it takes history an eternity to catch up, i know what you been up to.

Snowballs materialize when enough snowflakes get together for a common cause. Let's hope anti-Holt bill sentiments are expressed/snowballs on Capitol Hill. We can do better than HR-811 to restore integrity to the American election process.

KKKarl Rove has his foot in the door to tamper with and manipulate the election process. That door which leads to gaming our elections ought to be slammed shut so Rove's foot never crosses that threshold again.

No loopholes for that anti-democracy fascist who hates America to his core. Rove and the Rove want-to-be soldiers are not to be trusted. They seek to contaminate the election process - we can not stand by and permit them to do that.

For those of you who need the "elevator speech" (quick enough to explain to someone on the elevator) as to why the Holt Bill, also known as HR 811, also known as the V-CIA bill (Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility) --- Here it is. The DRE provisions are bad, but not the worst thing about the bill. Below are the "dealbreakers":

The elevator speech -

THERE ARE THREE PROBLEMS WITH THE HOLT BILL AND ITS SENATE COMPANION BILL, THE FEINSTEIN BILL:

1) For the first time ever, FEDERALIZES requirements for secret vote counting on secret software

2) Expands and locks in the power to control elections through four White House appointees, who will be in charge of the secret vote counting software (see above)

3) Because of 1) and 2) above, the bill is not just "bad" (meaning, it can be fixed), it is DANGEROUS, in that it changes the way our democracy works and ultimately, dismantles democracy itself.

* * * * *

On point 1) the issue is the unprecendented federal sanction for proprietary trade secret software, enforced through nondisclosure agreements which carry with them the full punitive consequences under the law, for the life of the "trade secret", and by the way, trade secrets have no expiration date.

On point 2) above, Holt's office has provided disinformation and has indicated even to others in congress that the EAC (four White House appointees) provisions that were objected to in the first version have been corrected; they have not. The latest version of the bill explicitly empowers the EAC, which it refers to as "The Commission" 32 times and quintuples the amount of funding given The Commission, indefinitely.

And on point 3) above, these changes create an unprecedented shift in power, and effectively dismantle democracy.

"When asked about reintroducing HR 6200, his bill calling for hand counted paper ballots in the presidential race for last session, Kucinich said it would be 'very soon,'" according to the campaign's press release, which was also posted by Democracy for New Hampshire election integrity advocate Nancy Tobi at OpEdNews today.

Okay, I get why the Holt bill is bad and I'm all for 100% paper ballots. What I don't get currently is the need for hand counting. In my state, we do use the optical scanners to process paper ballots. Now, I understand that it's possible to rig the optical scanners, but I'd like to think there should be a way to address this somehow.

Hand counting every ballot sounds very slow/laborious to me and could introduce more human error into the process. Can't we use technology in some secure and transparent way to speed up the counting of paper ballots? Feed a stack of ballots through different optical machines to verify consistent results?

Optical scanning machines are not just COUNTING the ballots --- they also have (trade secret protected in Holt) software in them.

Software that can easily say... "For every 9th ballot that scanns as a Democrat, change it to the Rethuglican."

They can also have different rules for when they "kick back" a ballot, such as they did in 2000, 2004 and 2006 where rich and/or white (Rethuglican-tending) voters who make a mistake get their ballots kicked back with "there's a problem with this ballot, fix it" and poor or black or hispanic or other ethnic (Democratic-tending) voters who make a mistake get their ballots accepted without any commment (or opportunity to correct) and then "spoiled" due to the error, and never counted.

This is one of the ways the Rethuglican monsters, liars, thieves and scum stole 3,000,000 votes in 2000, 5,000,000 votes in 2004, 6,000,000 votes in 2006 and plan to steal 10,000,000 votes in 2008.

You know, no matter how much of the country believes in your values and platform, getting past a 10,000,000 deficit in a 120,000,000 race is not easy.

The 3 problems with the Holt Bill, as stated in Bev Harris, are a succinct way of explaining an international problem found in election processes everywhere.
IF a paper counting process can be turned into a participatory open process on the local level which, in turn, passes on the transparent local counting to higher levels with all to see the results: then this process can be an answer.
Transparency and open participatory counting process at the local level and open certifiable data passed on for all to see the results of a secret ballot: these are the critical foundations for making sense of any 'we the people' controlling the operation of our own government.
The entire world has seen the fraudulent election games of 2000 & 2004 and democracy, US election-style stands ridiculed.
Paper ballot counting with transparent, participative involvement of citizens, is the key.